Right Thinking from the Left Coast

How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes

I think we could save ourselves a lot of time with this Petraeus scandal if we just assumed everyone is sleeping with everyone, everyone is e-mailing everyone and everyone is sexting everyone:

The FBI probe into the sex scandal that prompted CIA Director David Petraeus to resign has expanded to ensnare Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced early Tuesday.

According to a senior U.S. defense official, the FBI has uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of documents — most of them e-mails — that contain “potentially inappropriate” communication between Allen and Jill Kelley, the 37-year-old Tampa woman whose report of harassment by a person who turned out to be Petraeus’s mistress ultimately led to Petraeus’s downfall.

Allen, a Marine, succeeded Petraeus as the top allied commander in Afghanistan in July 2011. He also served as Petraeus’s deputy when both generals led the military’s Tampa-based Central Command from 2008 until 2010.

A federal agent who launched the investigation that ultimately led to the resignation of Central Intelligence Agency chief David Petraeus was barred from taking part in the case over the summer due to superiors’ concerns that he was personally involved in the case, according to officials familiar with the probe.

…

One official said the agent in question sent shirtless photos to Ms. Kelley well before the email investigation began, and FBI officials only became aware of them some time later. Eventually, supervisors told the agent he was to have nothing to do with the case, though he never had a formal role in the investigation, the official said.

It’s fun to wallow in the salacious details, I guess. And I know the media is having fun tearing down these men and women. But I actually think there may be a serious side to this, which is the uncontrolled and pretty much unsupervised explosion of the National Security State. Expect the media to ignore that side when their are shirtless photos and hot biographers around. But the rabbit hole is getting deeper each day.

Jill Kelley, the woman who was (allegedly) threatened by Gen. Petraeus’s squeeze Paula Broadwell and who (apparently) started the FBI investigation that led to Petraeus’ ouster, who went to the FBI for help after the threats and then (allegedly) had a relationship with the FBI agent in charge of her own case, who (allegedly) sent her shirtless pics of himself, also (apparently, allegedly) had “compromising” communications with Gen. John Allen, the Big Damn Commander of our war effort in Afghanistan.

My favorite take on this whole thing is how can 9/11 have been an inside job, but the director of the CIA can’t keep an affair quiet.

Best thing I heard on the radio this morning… we already have tons of details on this affair in a matter of days. But Benghazi… weeks later, still little detail coming out and people seem to be stonewalling. Then there’s Fast and Furious… the WH barely trickles out docs when officially requested by congress, with most of it blacked out.

But when it’s salacious and can distract from real issues… hoo boy, watch out for the people digging and the info comes flying out.

My favorite take on this whole thing is how can 9/11 have been an inside job, but the director of the CIA can’t keep an affair quiet.

Oh, also reminds me of the commentary track on The Sum of All Fears. The track with the director and Tom Clancy himself. There were a few points where Clancy made the same point, but the best was an early joke about how they knew all these details of Ryan’s girlfriend and stuff and the line about “welcome to the CIA sport.” Clancy basically just said, “Bullshit!” They don’t know that kind of stuff about your, nor are they that secretive about every single person working for them. Otherwise you wouldn’t have had issues with people leaking info. What made it somewhat more funny was the director sounded surprised. I think a lot of people, especially those in the hollywood cocoon, actually believe the things that are regularly shown in movies and TV.

There were a few other points on the track that were interesting. In one, Clancy made some comment about how it’s usually democrats that allow themselves to get backed into a corner until going to war is the only way out. Whereas republicans will at least point out threats ahead of time and, sometimes, want to go after them before they grow to a point where they can back you into said corner. The director (liberal guy, shocker I know) didn’t agree and they almost started going off on that for awhile but agreed to disagree and move on.

I’m still sticking with my original assessment of this, which is “how the fuck do you get to be a 4-star general without know the basic rule of “don’t stick your dick in crazy”?”

That there is more going on here, and that truth is weirder that fiction, is rather obvious. It may be years before we even get half the truth about what’s going on – the amount of smoke and bullshit being dumped on this soap opera is mindblowing.

Expect an HBO movie about this, which somehow places blame on Republicans, within two years.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s (a four-star Marine general) communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

Both Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen intervened in the same nasty child custody battle involving Natalie Khawam, the “psychologically unstable” twin sister of Jill Kelley.

I told y’all yesterday that Lebanese woman were fiesty and sultry didn’t I? And General Allen broke TWO Marine Corps cardinal rules:
1) never put it in writing
2) most dates should be initiated by “lick the back of a $100 bill, sticking it to your forehead and walk into the bar. Never Fails, somebody gets screwed every time.